Saturday, March 16, 2024

1146. Half a Double Sonnet - Mary Jo Salter


For Ben


Their ordeal over, now the only trouble

was conveying somehow to a boy of three

that for a week or two he’d be seeing double.

Surely he wouldn’t recall the surgery

years later, but what about the psychic scars?

And so, when the patch come off, they bought the toy

he’d wanted most. He held it high “Two Cars!”

he cried; and drove himself from joy to joy.

Two baby sisters… One was enough of Clare,

but who could complain—conderring that another

woman had stepped forward to take care

of the girls, which left him all alone with Mother.

Victory! Even when he went to pee,

he was seconded in his virility.

Saturday, March 09, 2024

1145. Grenimi AI - Winged Icarus

 


"Wow! I asked the Gemini AI to write a poem about the fall of Icarus

and this is what I got. "

On fragile wings, ambition soared,

Icarus, by Daedalus adored.

Escaped they did, from island's plight,

With feathers stitched and sunlit flight.

The world unfurled, a boundless blue,

But warnings wise, fell from his view.

Intoxicated, by heights unknown,

He chased the sun, upon its throne.

Too close he danced, with fiery might,

The waxen bond, could not withstand the light.

A silent scream, a feathery rain,

Icarus fell, a sun-kissed stain.

The waves embraced, his tragic fate,

A fleeting dream, sealed by his haste.

A lesson writ, in sky and sea,

Of hubris tamed, and mortality.

Saturday, February 24, 2024

1144. Addressed Humorously to Tu Fu - Li Po (705-762 A.D.)

  Translated by Shigeyoshi Obata


Here! is this you on the top of Fan-ko Moutain,

Wearing a huge hat in the noonday sun?

How thin, how wretchedly, you have grown!

You must have been suffering from poetry again.

Friday, February 23, 2024

1143. A Game Of Chess - Gwen Harwood

To John Brodie


Nightfall: the town’s chromatic nocturne wakes

dark brilliance on the river; colours drift

and tremble as enormous shadows lift

Orion to his place. The heart remakes

that peace torn in the blaze of day. Inside

your room are music, warmth and wine, the board

with chessmen set for play. The harpsichord

begins a fugue; delight is multiplied.


A game: the heart’s impossible ideal —

to choose among a host of paths, and know

that if the kingdom crumbles one can yield

and have the choice again. Abstract and real

joined in their trance of thought, the two players show

the calm of gods above a troubled field. 

Monday, February 05, 2024

1142. On The Birth Of A Son - Su Shih (Su Tung-Po) (1036-1101 A.D.) -

Translated by Arther Waley


Families when a child is born

Hope it will turn out intelligent.

I, through intelligence,

Having wrecked by whole life,

Only hope the baby will prove

Ignorant and stupid.

Then he’ll be happy all his days

And grow into a cabinet minister.

Sunday, January 28, 2024

1141. Late Self-Portrait by Rembrandt - Jane Hirshfield

The dog, dead for years, keeps coming back in the dream.

We look at each other there with the old joy.

It was always her gift to bring me into the present—


Which sleeps, changes, awakens, dresses, leaves


Happiness and unhappiness

differ as a bucket hammered from gold differs from one of

    pressed tin,

this painting proposes.


Each carries the same water, it says.

Saturday, January 13, 2024

1140. Arithmetic - Carl Sandburg


Arithmetic is where numbers fly like pigeons 

in and out of your head.

Arithmetic tells you how many you lose or win 

if you know how many you had 

before you lost or won.

Arithmetic is seven eleven all good children 

go to heaven — or five six bundle of sticks.

Arithmetic is numbers you squeeze from your head 

to your hand to your pencil to your paper 

till you get the answer.

Arithmetic is where the answer is right 

and everything is nice and you can look 

out of the window and see the blue sky — or the

answer is wrong and you have to start all over 

and try again and see how it comes out this time.

If you take a number and double it and double it again 

and then double it a few more times, the number 

gets bigger and bigger and goes higher and higher 

and only arithmetic can tell you what the number is 

when you decide to quit doubling.

Arithmetic is where you have to multiply — 

and you carry the multiplication table in your head and 

hope you won't lose it.

If you have two animal crackers, one good and one bad, 

and you eat one and a striped zebra 

with streaks all over him eats the other, 

how many animal crackers will you have if somebody

  offers you five six seven and you say No no no and you say

Nay nay nay and you say Nix nix nix?

If you ask your mother for one fried egg for breakfast and 

she gives you two fried eggs and you eat both of them, 

who is better in arithmetic, you or your mother?

Monday, January 01, 2024

1139. The Song Of The Lark - David Whyte


The song begins and the eyes are lifted

but the sickle points toward the ground,

its downward curve forgotten in the song she hears,

while over the dark wood, rising or falling,

the sun lifts on cool air,

the small body of a singing lark.  


The song falls, the eyes raise, the mouth opens

and her bare feet on the earth have stopped.


Whoever listens in this silence, as she listens,

will also stand opened, thoughtless, frightened

by the joy she feels, the pathway in the field

branching to a hundred more, no one has explored.


What is called in her rises from the ground

and is found in her body,

what she is given is secret even from her.


This silence is the seed in her

of everything she is

and falling through her body

to the ground from which she comes,

it finds a hidden place to grow

and rises, and flowers, in old wild places,

where the dark-edged sickle cannot go. 

Sunday, December 24, 2023

1138. When The Shoe Fits - Chuang Tzu -


Translated by Thomas Merton


Ch’ui the draftsman

Could draw more perfect circles freehand

Than with a compass.


His fingers brought forth

Spontaneous forms from nowhere. His mind

Was meanwhile free and without concern

With what he was doing.


No application was needed

His mind was perfectly simple

and knew no obstacle.  


So, when the shoe fits

The foot is forgotten,

When the belt fits

The belly is forgotten,

When the heart is right

“For” and “against” are forgotten.


No drives, no compulsions,

No needs, no attractions:

Then your affairs

Are under control. 

You are a free man.


Easy is right. Begin right

And you are easy.

Continue easy and you are right.


The right way to go easy

Is to forget the right way

And forget that the going is easy.




Sunday, December 17, 2023

1137. This Only - Czesław Milosz


A valley and above it forests in autumn colors.

A voyager arrives, a map led him here.

Or perhaps memory. Once, long ago, in the sun,

When the first snow fell, riding this way

He felt joy, strong, without reason,

Joy of the eyes. Everything was the rhythm

Of shifting trees, of a bird in flight,

Of a train on the viaduct, a feast of motion.

He returns years later, has no demands.

He wants only one, most precious thing:

To see, purely and simply, without name,

Without expectations, fears, or hopes,

At the edge where there is no I or not-I.

Wednesday, November 29, 2023

1136. What Is The Opposite Of A Prince? - Richard Wilber


What is the opposite of a Prince?

 A frog must be the answer, since,

As all good fairy stories tell,

When some witch says a magic spell,

Causing the prince to be disguised

So that he won’t be recognized,

He always ends up green and sad

And sitting on a lily pad.

Monday, November 20, 2023

1135. Party Preparations - Posidippus (About 273 BC)

     Translated from the Greek by Barton Raffel

  (nothing changes)


We’ll be four, each with his woman.

Eight’s too many for one keg of wine.

Go tell Aristus the keg I bought

Is only half full, a gallon short, maybe two

Or even more. Hurry!

They’re coming at five.